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New DH helmet from 100% ? It looks like they're Trajecta helmet but the visor says Aircraft 2 and they're are a few other differences!
I get that there are alot of point again this, specially from factory teams, but gravity racing? They Are in the business of going fast.
It is just a thought.
There are a ton of things that could be tested besides weight, I'm surprised we don't see more adjustable test mules testing out the geometry. In reality, like I've said before, DH racing is more like touring car or rally racing (not WRC though!) with near production equipment under the riders. It's far from the F1 status some have tried to paint it as. Funny though, with the number of bikes sold it would make sense to go full F1 and more or less ignore production bikes in that regard, if it wasn't for the rules (selling the stuff you ride) and if the budget was there.
As much as people love to hate on Spec, they are kicking some goals with their bikes lately.
I doubt more than 10 % of MTB riders actually know what the leverage ratio means on an in-depth basis, why it changes through the stroke, why it changes differently for different bikes, etc. Let alone more complicated stuff.
As for a lot of info can be gathered using a GoPro, that's just data acquisition. You can use potentiometers (in pivots), linear potentiometers, LVDTs, accelerometers, pressure sensors on brakes, GoPros, etc. Whatever you want. You choose the solution that gives adequate granularity of the data that you need for your case and fits the packaging.
That's the "easy part", as you said, a lot of info can be gathered. There are two important bits here:
1. is the data useable? For example, using a GoPro, so using the method from the video, won't be particularly precise as the camera itself will move quite a lot as well. Plus you have smearing of the image (due to fast movements), making it hard to accurately position the point in space, giving you additional errors and fluctuations (this would be important if you were to calculate velocities and accelerations of movements from that data, for example for the suspension designer to calculate the loads, as the accelerations could fluctuate wildly due to the error in measured position). Tracking two points (for example top and bottom of the shock - effective ETE) would make it better and would remove the issue of camera movement, but still, not ideal, as you keep the errors of reading the position from an image. Details like these, limitations of the chosen equipment and the desired result, influence the choice of data acquisition method and require some knowledge to make the correct choice. Thus if you can use something it doesn't necessarily mean you should use that something or that it will perform well for the desired purpose.
2. When you have tons of (supposedly usable) data, the hard bit is making that data make sense and use it to make changes on the bike or the riding style to go faster.
With the data acquisition system available off the shelf, point 1 is mostly taken care of (there is a system that even enables you to wire strain gauges to it to measure the stress and strain of a frame in development). It's nr.2 that's the issue. That requires either tons of passion (and some connections to get into the position) or tons of money to pay an expert to do it. In the real world, people are paid tons of money to do that for example in F1, but then the money involved drops VERY quickly as you go towards lower tiered racing series and you quickly get to students, young professionals learning their craft and similar people in series that otherwise look very professional.
https://youtu.be/l7GNEuW6EeY
OH, I completely forgot Giant ditched DVO and went for Fox with their suspension a while ago...
I really shouldn't watch videos passively (more like listening to them only).
I´m not saying that detailed analyse of every single number it can give you is easy, of course it isn´t. All I´m saying is that every rider out there could benefit from taking the very basic data, thinking for a minute or two what they mean and making informed decision what to do to make suspension work better. The great thing is, with data logging you can go back and see if the change you did improved the issue or not. At this point there is just so much products that have gimmicky adjusters on them that having something to help you see what does something (and what it actually is doing) could be major benefit.
We all have super capable devices in our pockets that are mostly used for googling stuff and to watch porn, I don´t think data logging would be more wasteful than that lol
Too bad that more susp. tuners don´t offer this kind of service, buying telemetry just to setup suspension once and then put it in the drawer is unreasonable investment for most, paying 100quids or whatever for getting the data would be no problem for most people though, at least I think so.
As for phones, yeah, they could enable quite a bit, but then you're again on the teeter of do you want the raw data and analyse it yourself? Or do you want an app that will tell you 'increase rebound damping in the front, lower spring rate in the rear'. That will be more useable to the average rider, as they will be told what to do, but more advanced people might not trust it because it's a black box. And you need to make that black box work, reliably.
So yeah... Lots of options. But I think we'll see more data acquisition happen in the coming years. Or maybe quite a lot more of it is already being used, but not at the races, instead it's used in tests away from cameras?
There is absolutely a point where having too much data available is more harmful than helpful, that´s why I wouldn´t go overboard with number of sensors and logged data.
On the other hand, I´m pretty sure that especially more knowledgeable riders like to overly analyse what the bike does and why, but without any hard data there is so small probability that your guess is correct that it´s likely better to focus only on what feels better/worse rather than why it does what it does. It´s way too easy to gown down this rabbit hole and end up with worse setup than you started with.
The key is I'm too lazy to do back to back runs and test things (should really go to a bikepark with that intention some day...), when I'm riding I just ride and love it. Having more data might help, yeah, as I'm also afraid I won't really feel much of a difference between different settings, even though I know what they do and what to look for! So yeah, it's probably not easy for the racers too.
As for Shockwiz, yeah, it's air pressure only. And honestly I'm not even sure how (if) they handle the leverage ratios. I'm guessing they just generalise the shapes of the movements, so the amplitudes and the number of movements to determine if the damping or spring rate is not OK...
I´m guessing that shockwiz somehow can estimate what leverage curve is like from pressure change amplitude and time it takes? Linear frame should see slower and more steady rise in pressure for given number of tokens I think?
I think they make quite a few assumptions as that's easier and still gives the user much more info than just feel would. If it's correct of course.
As for clickers selling, guilty, though having a low speed compression setting in an open shock (if you have a switch) is a must for me now. I leave my suspension open (well duh for the fork...) and want to tune the LSC to have some pedalling platform at all times. So a set it and forget it mode that works well when pedalling and descending.
Jakub and Primoz, good stuff, but maybe a diffrent thread?
The new forbidden will be called the dreadnought and have 150 something travel
it should drop this month